Math NAEP Delivers Some Good News

The nation's 4th and 8th graders have earned another positive report
card in mathematics, as their performance continued on a path of steady
improvement that began a decade ago, according to the latest results
from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

While the report released last week offers some welcome news on the
progress schools are making in raising math achievement, education
officials tempered their enthusiasm with concerns that most students
are still not "proficient" in the subject, that the gap in the
performance between white students and their black and Hispanic
classmates has not narrowed, and that 12th graders have lost some of
the ground gained since 1990.

"We are very pleased that the math scores are going up," Gary W.
Phillips, the acting U.S. commissioner of education statistics, said of
the report, which includes both national and state-level results.
"We're not pleased, however, that the gap between the majority and
minority is unabated."

The results of the assessment—taken last year by a nationally
representative sample of some 43,000 students from public and private
schools—show gains in both the scale scores and achievement
levels for students in the lower grades.

The sample of 14,000 4th graders, for example, scored an average of
228 on a 500-point scale, a 4-point jump since the test was last given
in 1996, and 15 points higher than in 1990, when the current math test
was first administered.

Nearly 70 percent of the students performed at or above the "basic"
level—meaning they could perform simple calculations and
mathematical functions. In 1996, 64 percent of 4th graders performed at
the basic level or better, while just half did so in 1990.

The average score for 8th graders climbed to 275, a 3-point increase
since 1996, and a gain of 12 points over the past decade. Two-thirds of
the 16,000 8th graders who took the test scored at the basic level or
higher, a gain of 4 percentage points over the last test, and 14
percentage points since 1990.

Students from the lowest- to the highest-performing levels along the
scoring spectrum improved in both grades.

'A Long Way To Go'

"Overall, the numbers are quite encouraging, and that was a pleasant
surprise," said R. James Milgram, a professor of mathematics at
Stanford University. "We are still in a position of having a long way
to go, but it appears that people are trying," he said, and having some
success.

Meanwhile, 12th graders' performance, which had improved over the
past decade, dipped with last year's test, mirroring similar trends on
international comparisons of the math achievement of 17-year-olds. The
13,000 students in the sample scored an average 301 points, a 3-point
drop since 1996, which is considered statistically significant. The
group averaged 294 points in 1990 and 299 points in 1992.

About two-thirds of the high school seniors performed at or above
the basic level—meaning they showed procedural and conceptual
knowledge in solving problems—a fall-off from the nearly 70
percent of students in the 1990 sample who did as well. The decline was
attributed, in part, to poorer results for the lowest-performing
students.

Fewer than a fourth of the students in any of the three
grades—23 percent of 4th graders, 22 percent of 8th graders, and
14 percent of 12th graders—were considered "proficient" on the
exam, and fewer than 5 percent of the students in each grade showed
"advanced" knowledge and skill in the subject.

"Despite this improvement, it is clear that with only a quarter of
our 4th and 8th graders performing at or above proficient levels on
this exam, we are not doing enough," U.S. Secretary of Education Rod
Paige said in a statement.

African-American and Hispanic students saw significant gains on the
test, but have still not caught up to their white peers. The average
score of 205 for black 4th graders, for example, represents a jump of
16 points over the past decade, and 5 points since 1996. Hispanic 4th
graders scored an average of 212 points—6 points better than in
1996, and 14 points higher than a decade ago. A higher proportion of
minority students in both grades also reached the basic level in the
subject.

Nevertheless, white 4th graders maintained a lead of 30 points or
more over their minority classmates throughout the decade. Similar gaps
in performance persist in the other grades as well.

More troubling, experts said, is that fewer than 40 percent of black
students, and fewer than half of Hispanic students, could show they
were capable of at least basic skills, while 80 percent of white 4th
graders and some three-fourths of white 8th and 12th graders performed
at that level. Moreover, the difference in the proportion of white and
minority students who are proficient in the subject has almost doubled
during the decade.

"We believe that there is the educational know-how to get
substantial achievement gains for kids," said Amy Wilkins, a policy
analyst for the Education Trust, a Washington-based nonprofit group
that works to improve education for disadvantaged children.

"The real problem now is a lack of political will. We know what to
do, but we just don't feel like doing it for some kids."

As part of the test design, some students with disabilities or those
with limited proficiency in English were allowed to receive
accommodations—such as more time, or the use of adaptive
technology—when taking the test; others were not.

In each of the grades, no significant differences turned up in the
scale scores of the students who received such accommodations and those
who did not.

State Results

About 200,000 other students in the 4th and 8th
grades—representative samples from each of the 40 participating
states, as well as the District of Columbia and several U.S.
territories and other jurisdictions—also took the NAEP math test.
That testing produced state-level results.

Most of the states chalked up at least small gains in their average
scale scores, and saw improvement in students' achievement levels.

Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Minnesota were among the
highest-scoring states in both grades tested.

North Carolina was among the 10 top-performing states, with 232
points on the 500-point scale, and the most improved. Its 4th graders
gained 8 points over the 1996 test and a total of 20 points since 1990.
Eighth graders in the state made more dramatic gains, scoring an
average of 280 points, 12 points higher than in 1996 and 30 points more
than their counterparts a decade earlier.

Not surprisingly, 8th graders nationwide whose teachers reported
that they are certified in math or have extensive experience teaching
the subject tended to perform better on the test, according to results
from accompanying student and teacher surveys.

In addition, more time spent in math class translated into higher
scores in each of the grades.

"The NAEP shows that teacher preparation matters," said James M.
Rubillo, the executive director of the National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics in Reston, Va.

"It also shows that students who had more mathematics [instruction]
performed at a higher level, so we need to make sure students have
access to studying the subject throughout their education."

"NAEP Levels
Found To be Flawed," from FairTest, details the National
Research Council's (NRC) findings of NAEP's process of categorizing
test scores, deeming it as "fundamentally flawed" and results in levels
that are "not believable" and typically too difficult.

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